Roots
by The Inkline
Summary: [High School] There's something to be said about being the new kid. Automatically, you're a target to every bully in existence. I suppose wearing a skirt while having a Y chromosome doesn't help. [Hakucentric][On Hiatus]
1. Chapter 1

-Chapter One: Someone Dial 911-

When it comes down to it, all we have in the world are our roots. Our home, our friends and allies. In the twisted realm of fading earth, it is these things that keep us from losing our grip and falling away into nothingness.

Rarely, if ever, do we think of the others planted next to us, or concern ourselves with their fall, so fixated we are with our own lives.

Oh, what a pity, her parents died. Oh, what a shame, he has left his friends behind.

They are nothing more than mermaid's tears, a façade put in place to hide our Mr. Hyde's from view. We don't honestly care for these strangers, simply feel a lingering pity and nothing more. This is because we do not recognize them as precious to us, as our roots.

Why should we care if the wood rots?

"—All names have been withheld, in order to retain student privacy. In other news…"

Click.

I watched as the screen flashed, flattening to a single line of white before the screen went black. The television set was old, and so a vague green dot remained in the center of the screen even after life-giving electricity was cut off.

I uncrossed my legs, pulling them from beneath me, knees brought up and pulled against my chest, toes wriggling within long striped socks. All around me were boxes and bags, piles and stacks of them creating a haphazard maze of the apartment I lived in. I nudged at one trash bag with my foot, feeling at the bulging contents, leg drawn back when the bag gave a protest and fell onto its side.

It was littered with white, slashing letters, those lines of white-out crackling a bit.

'Salvation Army'. Our old clothes, then.

We needed to move quickly, he had said, to avoid any retaliation from the community for what we had done. So, a depressing hour had been spent rifling through drawers and closets, tossing away anything that wasn't completely necessary.

We could always get more, after all. Still, I couldn't help feeling miserable as shorts and t-shirts were tossed aside and folded, because the action just drove home the fact that we were being forced to leave what I had called home for all of my life.

My roots were rotting, you see. I was one of those poor souls who were picked for the yearly quota of misery in the world.

Given, it could have been worse, infinitely worse. Everything could have been taken from me; he could have been thrown in jail if people had actually found out beyond the rumours spreading.

Every night, I thanked that woman in my mind, the principal who had spoken with us and advised a transfer for us both lest things get out of hand. I remember standing there, right in front of that religiously polished desk, staring hard at the papers on the surface as the one beside me spoke with the one seated.

It was difficult to swallow, and even harder to look up at the taller man next to me, to meet those hazel eyes and know that this entire situation was my fault.

Not that he ever said such, no. No blame was ever exchanged; both of us preferring to ignore what had caused this unfortunate circumstance and move on with our lives.

I'm not sure we could have fought about it and survived.

I looked up from the white-out letters when I heard the door open down the hall, pushing myself to my feet to peek out of the room, sighing a bit as I saw the front door was left wide open.

Meizu was coming towards me then, tugging at a scruffy ponytail to right it, glancing up at me as he made for the boxes.

"Truck's here. Wanna get off your girly ass and move some of this crap?"

I grinned despite myself, head shaking a little as I followed him towards the piles, arms placed innocently behind my back.

"What's wrong? You three don't have enough muscle between you?"

"Maybe you'd have a little more if you would actually lift something."

"And ruin my figure? Puh-leeze."

It was typical, almost sibling-like banter, us going back and forth like this, a teasing persiflage that would escalate until we were on the floor, wrestling and attempting to pin the other. Meizu usually won, from sheer size in comparison to me, and it was long ago established that kicking wasn't allowed in these fights.

A pity, because the only muscle I had was in my damn legs.

I'll tell you another thing, too. It's really, really difficult to retain any semblance of dignity while rolling around like that in a pleated skirt. Or any type of skirt, for that matter, I suppose. I wouldn't know, since I haven't exactly done a goddamn study on it.

So there we were, fighting over whether or not I would have to lift anything more than my own backpack, his arm around my neck in a chokehold—that damn wrestling maniac and his championships—skirt around my hips and everything.

A pretty awkward scene to come walking into, I don't doubt it. Then again, considering this activity was done almost religiously, it didn't pose much of a surprise to the other two when they came inside to find out what was taking so long.

Gozu had the decency to grimace, at the very least, shaking his head in mild horror at how childish his brother could behave when left alone with a cross-dressing teenager. He was always the boring one, I would tell him, scolding him for being too damn serious all the time.

He would, in turn, tell me I was a lazy brat who'd be better off as a doll than a human being.

This is probably true. I would be better off as a doll. I like being pretty, and I love being played with. The latter comment typically reserved for one person. Though I distinctly remember flirting my way into getting free lunches at school when I was a kid. Ah, fun times, I tell you.

"Haku, get off of him, will you?" those words had me on my feet in an instant, replacing the cloth of my skirt over my butt where it belonged. I grinned at the two in the doorway as Meizu grabbed onto my hand to pull himself up, before moving off to pick up a box of God-knows-what.

"He insulted my figure, you know."

"Heaven forbid," came the reply from my guardian, the man shaking his head almost wearily. I had been especially annoying as of late, I know. It's what happens whenever I get embarrassed or ashamed of something I'd done. I act loudly, so to speak. So I made it my duty, in the days spent packing up, to be as irritating a chit as I could, to make up for making us move like this in the first place.

I suppose it'd be easier to understand if I actually said what the hell was going on, wouldn't it?

See, talk spreads pretty damn fast if you're an effeminate boy. It spreads even faster if you happen to like other boys and wear skirts. I already had three strikes going for me, before people began realizing how often I spent time with our math teacher. Considering I'm less than spectacular at anything harder than multiplication, for a while I had the excuse going of 'extra help'. But then, people started to realize that I went home with this man every day, and was dropped off every day by said man.

Guardian, shmardian, they'd whisper to each other. Something else was going on here, and they were right.

Thus we found ourselves here, amidst a jungle of cardboard, because polite society doesn't take too kindly to a professional teacher living with a student, if you know what I mean.

Anyway, considering the looks I was getting, I decided to quit my little game and get my ass in gear, so to speak. I took up the bag that I had kicked over earlier and began hauling it outside, to where one of those rental trucks was waiting. The rest of the process was relatively silent, broken only by muffled grunts of exertion and the sound of objects being dropped and rearranged to fit in the back of the truck.

Finally, all that I had left was my pack, that hanging over my shoulder by a worn strap, and all four of us were looking up at the door of the apartment we had just emptied. Finally, the silence was broken by Zabuza, the first to turn away.

"Let's get going. I don't want to have to stop at some motel."

We began piling into cars then, Zabuza and I taking over the truck of stuff, Meizu and Gozu handling the car and bike respectively. My pack was set down on the floor of the cabin, held in place by my ankles. I frowned, noting a scuff mark on the black leather of my boot, and rubbed at the surface to try and get it off.

"Got Stewpot?" came the inquiry to my left, and I looked up from my boot long enough to nod, before the engine was turned on and we were on our way. I had been careful to stuff poor old Stewpot into my pack before anything else, so I knew I didn't leave him behind. He was looking rather worse for the wear lately, what was once fluffy white fur now rather matted and grey-ish. Like a shirt that had been worn and washed far too many times. Plus, I had the sneaking suspicion that his eye was about to fall off.

It was something that Gozu used to tease me about constantly, keeping a toy rabbit like Stewpot around. He called it stupid, for a kid my age to still sleep with a stuffed toy at night. My reaction was always the same. I'd kick him in the shin.

It's amazing, for a man who lectures about maturity so much, to sound so much the soprano when in pain.

"Good. I don't want to get halfway there and have you shrieking that you'd left him behind."

"Oh, but you like it when I shriek."

"Not right in my ear while I'm trying to dodge the Hummers."

"Mmph." It's amazing, how easily we take to monosyllabic grunts when we don't know what else to say. I've noticed a pattern in certain people, really. Mine was more the murder of a biting retort that my brain realizes only seconds before it's released that saying such a thing is a_ really_ bad idea.

I said "mmph" a lot around Zabuza.

He tended to "Hn" whenever he couldn't come up with a point, which was usually his way of losing an argument with some grace. Meizu just liked to say "bah" when he didn't give a damn about what you were spouting off, one way or the other. Gozu would make a "tch" sound and walk away shaking his head.

"We'll have to write in for a bus pass when we get there." I looked up from my boot again, frowning a bit at the elder beside me, confused to say the least.

"Bus pass? For what?"

"For you, what else? You wanna be able to catch the damn thing by the time school rolls around, don't you?"

Again, I frowned, before realization set in, and I was sitting back in the seat, moving to stare out the window. Well, of course. The apartment we were jumping to was too far from the local school for me to walk every morning and afternoon without killing myself. It was the same at Kiri, though I had always jumped onto the bucket seat of Zabuza's motorcycle, so I had never needed the bus.

But we needed to play things safe this time around, which meant no more bucket seat, and no doubt this was his attempt to dive into that subject with some subtlety. Also known as 'keep the little boy from throwing a hissy fit'.

Oh, language, how I love your vague intricacies. If I wasn't such a fucking genius, I'd be pretty tired of not knowing what the hell he was getting at. Even so, I felt like throwing a hissy fit despite all of Zabuza's attempts to avoid one. Just to spite him, because I was feeling pretty damn miserable right then. But you remember my explanation of "mmph." Saying anything then would likely just explode, and I'd be left feeling even worse.

You know those moments. I'm sure you've had at least one, where nothing seems to be going your way, the world seems to be out to get you, and all you want to do is grab the person nearest to you and cause them as much pain as possible. It doesn't matter if you're in love with them or not, all you want is to be the Hurter instead of the Hurt. But every time you act on those urges, it explodes in your face, and all you're left with is the knowledge that you just acted the complete bitch, and you still don't feel better.

I really didn't want him to yell at me. So I kept my mouth shut, ("For once," I could imagine Meizu saying,) and stared out the window as the world became less and less familiar.


	2. Criminals Amongst Murderers

--Chapter Two— Criminals Amongst Murderers

I think I must have fallen asleep somewhere along the way, because my memory went black for a good while, because I don't remember the ferry ride over to the mainland, and the next thing I saw was a big green sign proclaiming, "Welcome to Konoha!" in big, happy white letters. I could picture a big ass smiley face saying it, too.

I sat up in my seat, straightening the belt that had gotten twisted in my sleep, rubbing at my cheek and staring out at my new home. The place looked bigger than Kiri, but that was probably because while Kiri was crammed on an island, this place had to make room for all the trees growing everywhere. Steadily, the big patches of forest gave way to more and more houses, until we were smack in the middle of the town, the only trees being the ones growing in carefully regulated intervals from one another, lining streets and making front yards look pretty. That smiley face was beginning to become something much more menacing in my head.

Leaning forward, I tried to catch glimpses of the faces of my new neighbours, mostly those that looked around my age. The key to success is observation, you see. If you understand which people are likely to try and kick your ass early on, you tend to avoid any problems in the future. I'm not quite sure if this same system applies to the species of 'friend.' Get back to me on that one.

My observation time was cut short, however, as we pulled into an apartment complex, and I was forced to get out of the moving van and help unload. A few people sitting outside stared at us as we hauled brown boxes up the stairs, frowning in the way that nosy neighbours do when they're trying to figure out if they want to bake you a fucking pie or not. Apparantly, three young men and a teenage 'girl' do not deserve a pie. It's a shame, really, but at least it let us know that the first thing that needed to go up were the curtains.

Finally, everything was out of the van and moved into respective rooms, piled into corners to make room for the mattresses we'd be sleeping on until we got beds set up. Not that it mattered much, I never really had a frame, so I was used to a mattress. When we were younger, Meizu got it into his head to watch "Chucky" with me in the living room and then plant a red-headed doll underneath my bed. He knew I always kept my crap under there, so when I looked under for Stewpot…

Well, I suppose it doesn't surprise when I say I ran screaming and crying and latched onto Zabuza's leg until he got the stupid doll out of my room and into the garbage. From then on I'd have to take running leaps and get into bed that way, always avoiding coming anywhere near the edge of it, and when I finally broke the bed frame doing so, Zabuza never replaced it. To this day, I've never asked him to.

I also can't seem to look at dolls for very long, either. How strange.

Either way, we didn't waste any time unpacking over the next few days, considering we had nothing else to do. As soon as I got my room done, I decided to go and 'help out' my dear brothers, which pretty much consisted of bugging the absolute shit out of Gozu and moving around Meizu's stuff when he wasn't looking at me. This soon resulted in Gozu losing his temper and chasing me around the apartment until I ran into an open door, effectively ending the game with a bloody nose. Bad luck, considering it was Zabuza who had opened the dreaded door in the first place, and he spent a good time trying not to kill Gozu before sending him to hook up the computer. Lucky bastard, because I was the one that got locked in the closet until the computer was ready.

The entire ordeal was a typical scenario: I wreaked havoc, I got sent to wreak havoc in a virtual world instead. That's probably the entire reason that Zabuza kept up the subscription for as long as he did, because things tended not to go to hell when I was otherwise occupied.

So, I was let out of the closet and led to the room where my machine was hooked up, and after a pointed glare from my guardian I sat my butt down to play. A sequence of button pressing and clicks, and I saw the monitor flicker to life, going dark before the screen was overtaken with the loading screen to my one true addiction. I must say, I am something of an internet junkie. Or, more specifically, a junkie of the Things That Drain Away All Semblance of a Social Life. Otherwise pressed into the letters of MMORPG. In case you didn't catch on, there are only three activities I'm concerned with: sex, the internet, and running.

Another series of clicks, and I watched my little virtual self wake up, the character soon blinking into existence on the main server, an elaborate little town of sorts where you can actually prepare yourself before you run off to get killed by people like me. I watched him idle for the few minutes it took to hook up my headset, another few clicks checking if any of my regular accomplices (whom I affectionately refer to as my minions of death) were online, before moving into the main hustle and bustle of the place to occupy my time.

With none of the regulars online, one's forced to make new friends, something that's much more easily managed if they happened to be represented by a bunch of pixels arranged in a pretty, colourful manner. What's hard, though, is making your first impression by words alone, so you have to be careful how you initiate a conversation. Or maybe that's just my being neurotic. Feel free to tell me.

Luckily, though, I got flagged down by another user rather than the other way around, and I made my way over to where he (I assume) was standing, by the main gate with who appeared to be his friend standing nearby.

"Oi! Sis!" I heard the kid call, the crackle of the headset coming to life in my ear, and I smiled to know that the creature was, in fact, a male. A loud one, but there we are. The one who waved at me was in the typical stereotype of the 'hit things with a sword until they die' method of doing things, heavily armoured to prevent him from getting killed in the process. The one standing to the side, however, was smaller, lightly armoured and armed with knives, apparently to use his friend as a distraction as he slit the enemy's throat. I liked him already.

"You want to party up with us, sis? We're missing a player, and we need someone at a long range." Came the crackle again, and my hand went to the volume to make things easier on my eardrums.

"Yeah, sure. On the condition you stop calling me 'sis.' Where are we going?"

"These coordinates," the slighter of the two finally said, and about a second afterward, the little text window popped up, and I plugged them in, watching the other two.

"Typical dungeon, huh?"

"The loser wants to level up."

"What! Bastard, who're you calling a loser?"

They bickered even as we all gated to the area, the louder of the pair apparently losing quite badly, made flustered by his friend's silence until he gave a groan and gave up. I thought it was all rather adorable, really. He must have heard me snicker to myself from over the headset, because his character turned to mine for a minute before he became even more sullen, running ahead of us to get to the dungeon quicker.

His friend just looked at me and shrugged, as if to assure me this was typical behaviour, and we set off at a run after him, ignoring all the nice little tidbits in the field, headed for the fortress that served as the field's dungeon. Which was a shame, because I'm usually anal about harvesting everything from a field before going in for the kill. Oh well, I'd just return later to make myself feel better.

We entered the fortress, me behind the slighter, apparently user-named Shiro. We stood still for the two seconds it took us to find Kyuubi, that amount of time made shorter by the fact that the character was making such a display as to be utterly impossible to miss.

No, really. If you jump up and down waving your arms, you tend to get noticed. Unfortunately for us, however, it also attracted the attention of the thing he was trying to warn us about. I darted to the side the second I saw the other players coming at us, pushing myself out of range of any attacks that could be operated in a split second. I watched Shiro dart around as well, though he kept closer than I did. None too surprising, as his weapons demanded getting up close and personal. Plus, Kyuubi was in there, and wouldn't last long by himself. A tap of a key, and I watched my meter go up, loading up on the magic necessary to operate my spell, pushing Kyuubi's health meter back up into the green.

That was about all the help the pair needed from me, operating in perfect synchronization with each other, Kyuubi lashing out with his broad sword, knocking their assailants back into Shiro's waiting daggers, and soon enough two of the lower level players were toast, their pixilated bodies fading into nonexistence with a trunk of swag left behind. That left the two higher ones, one pushing at Kyuubi and Shiro to keep them back while the mage worked up a spell of her own. Considering how long it was taking her, I had a very bad feeling that it wasn't something Kyuubi would be able to walk out of, and that would leave Shiro to get hammered by the melee fighter. I whirled, calling at Shiro to support Kyuubi, a potion pushing the latter's health back up to acceptable levels as I went for the mage, running behind her and landing several throwing knives into her back. The massive spell cancelled, she whirled to face me, backing up a few steps closer to her partner, holding still long enough to try and call forth a quick offensive.

Not quick enough. Each time she tried to complete a spell, another knife would find her, interrupting her concentration as I got closer and closer, her health bar dropping rapidly. By this point all her concentration was fixed on healing, her magic stores depleting almost as fast as her health was. Wait for it, wait for it, and then it came: the long pause between healing and hasty retreat that said that she was out of magic, now entirely focused on what potion stores she had. I grinned, pulling back long enough to launch into one of my own spells, one of the few offensive ones I had in my repertoire. Blue light appeared around her, before there was a crack, ice erupting into existence beneath her feet, freezing the character solid as the ice pushed upwards in a spike, impaling the mage where she stood.

The noise must have alerted her partner, because he was breaking away from where Kyuubi and Shiro were, pulling back to try and make a run for the exit. I moved, ignoring the fading corpse of my previous victim, skidding to a halt in front of the exit to block the other player, pushing him back into the cavern with a few knives until he was far enough away for another spell, this time encased in ice until more knives shattered it, him along with it. All three of our characters shifted, coming out of the fighting stance programmed into the game, standing there and staring at one another until I moved to collect the spoils, opening the chests left behind and rifling through the contents for anything good.

"Who the hell were those guys!" came a yell, and I was suddenly very glad I had turned the volume down, "Coming out of nowhere and attacking us! That's not allowed except in the arenas!"

"I don't think they cared, loser." The nickname went unnoticed, though, so deep was Kyuubi's anger towards the players we had just eliminated. Shiro, however, was watching me. "Who exactly were those guys?" he wondered aloud, though I had the sneaking suspicion that the question was aimed, specifically, at me.

I considered my options, then decided to warn the boys now before this happened again. No doubt our usernames would be spread like wildfire, and where I had no reason to worry, these two might.

"Those, unfortunately, were Heretics. Player killers. Of the Krieg clan, to be specific." This bit of information caught Kyuubi's attention as well as cementing Shiro's suspicions.

"How do you know all that?"

"What does a heretic imply, loser? Someone that goes against an established doctrine, against the will of the church, normally."

I gave a nod at that, and Shiro smiled. "Good job. And?"

"Well, why else would a player killer be called a heretic? Not because they go after other players, because there's already a name for that. You also named a specific clan, a way to identify them. That would mean you're a player killer yourself."

Kyuubi whirled to stare at me, and I could almost see his brain working to decide whether or not to draw his weapon on me. I raised my hands, and he froze in place.

"Guilty as charged, but don't worry about me. I have very specific tastes, which you two don't fall under."

"And why should we trust you?"

"Because he would have killed us by now, otherwise. Isn't that right, White Rabbit?"

"Bingo. However, you two are in a bit of trouble by this point. The characters may be dead, but the people behind them aren't. Your usernames will be all over the clan by the time they resurrect themselves, and Krieg is infamous for grudges."

"Our usernames? What about yours?" I laughed a bit at that, though it was more of a sarcastic noise than anything else.

"I'm already on their list." I moved forward then, opening up the trading windows to bestow the stolen goods on my newfound teammates, keeping the status items for myself. It was something to busy myself with as I let them mull things over. I usually waited for an opportune moment to explain my status in the virtual world to new acquaintences, but this happened to be something of an emergency. Like hell I was going to leave the other two in the dark, waiting and looking over their shoulders for the minute someone came to collect the life-debt owed.

"What are we supposed to do, then?"

"Nothing at all, if you choose to. I'll be sure to tell my people to keep an eye out for you two as they're doing their thing, if I happen to not be online. Think of it as body guarding." I rifled through my inventory for a few seconds, before grinning, distributing two identical items to each of the other two players. The symbol was easy enough to recognize, a black ribbon with a white rabbit slashed across it, one of the more simple types of 'armour', edited much like any other clan's distinguishing marks.

"Welcome to the Church of Stewpot, boys."


End file.
